Long term poster, have name changed.
Long story short, I have been friends with said friend for fourteen years. We met when we worked together, just after leaving school. Friend's family fairly emotionally unavailable, and I was relied upon as her main source of support through various inpatient psychiatry admissions etc. Various calls in the middle of the night, with her feeling suicidal, my going to visit her at short notice due to this also.
Lots of personal sacrifice on my part, including her uncle (married, and easily old enough to be my dad) coming onto me at nineteen, when she stayed at my place once, in a particularly difficult spell.
Fast forward many years, her mental illness hasn't really subsided. No recent admissions, but ongoing depressing thoughts, feelings of abandonment, low self esteem, thoughts of self harm etc. It feels that whatever level of support I can offer is never enough, and the need for it never ending.
Over time, I have found this exhausting. The more I engage with texts, calls, the more she calls and the more she 'needs' me. I have my own physical health condition, which can be badly affected by stress.
Over the past two years, I have tried to gradually reduce this contact, from several times daily to daily, to weekly, to monthly etc. I worry that if I tell her how I feel, that she will try to kill herself in response. I thought the phased approach was best.
Two years later, she is still calling me every week. I have not answered in the past year, but she still calls.
What am I to do? She is a nice person I find any contact with her at all exhausting. How do I make this stop?